Kenna's Lighter Bread

A special Thank You to Kenna Holm for giving me this recipe! It makes 2 loaves.

3 ½ c whole wheat flour
1/3 c gluten flour (vital wheat gluten)
1 ½ T yeast
2 ½ c steaming hot tap water (120-130 degrees)
1 T salt
1/3 c oil
1/3 c honey or ½ c sugar
1 ¼ T bottled lemon juice
2 ½ c whole wheat flour
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix together first 3 ingredients in a mixer with a dough hook. Add water all at once and mix for 1 min. cover and let rest for 10 mins. Add salt, oil, honey (or sugar) and lemon juice and beat for 1 min. Add last flour 1 c at a time, beating between each cup. Beat for about 6-10 mins. Until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This makes the dough very soft.
Turn dough onto oiled counter top (or bowl), divide, shape into loaves and place in a warm spot ( stove top might be warm enough), until dough reaches top of pan and bake for 30 mins. At 350.
Tap lightly and listen for a hollow sound and look for a light brown color.
****Instead of placing dough in bread pans, to rise, I put the dough in a large oiled bowl and let rise, then I punched down and divided and rolled into loaves and then placed them into bread pans and let rise for 20 mins. Then I placed in oven and baked.
Suzi’s disclaimer…I used to RUIN RHODES ROLLS (“Hockey puck” was a good description), so when I learned about turning my oven on when I started my grinding process, I never had issues again with hockey pucks or bread not rising. So I always let my bread rise twice. YOU can try it anyway. Be patient, don’t try to hurry bread. Have fun and find what works best for you!

Suzi's Whole Wheat Flax seed bread

This recipe in it's original form came from a friend . I wanted to add ground flax seed instead of oil to the recipe and I learned a few tricks along the way from other people I have met.
Turn on oven to 350.
Start with 8 cups of whole wheat and grind into flour *You want the freshest ground flour*
and grind 1 c. of oats (regular or quick)
Grind 1 c. of flax seed in a blender (NEVER EVER put flax seed in a grinder).
In a mixing bowl:
the ground flax seed
2 T yeast
2 T lecithin granules (you can omit)
1 1/2 T salt
1/2 c honey
5 1/2 c. warm water (not too hot)
2 T lemon juice (room temp and not fresh squeezed)
add 6 c. of flour 1 cup at a time and mix with a mixer with a dough hook!

add 1/2 c vital wheat gluten
6 c. of the whole wheat flour
1 c. of any kind of regular flour
knead until dough stick together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Coat a large bowl (I use a Tupperware, "That's a bowl") with spray oil and gather up all the dough and place in the bowl. Knead together and then turn over the dough to coat the outside of the dough. Place in a warm place for 30-45 mins. cover and let rise until double in bulk. Punch down and divide into 3 loaves. Spray the loaf pans (I use the Pampered Chef Stoneware loaf pans) with spray oil and place each loaf in a pan, cover and let rise again for about 20 mins. bake at 350 until lightly brown and when tapped LIGHTLY, sounds hollow, about 25 mins.
Remove from oven and let cool.

*You can use a large ziploc bag to keep the bread and it does freeze well.
*You can knead in raisins and cinnamon to make cinnamon raisin bread.

A friend of mine has a brain tumor and when he has chemo, this is one of the only things he can keep down. He craves this bread and I will make it for him as long as he needs it!

If you have problems with baking bread, think about ruining Rhodes rolls, like me. I am a reformed Rhodes roll ruiner! I think having the right tools is a must.